No, it's not. You don't need to use it. That's a fact. If you can't agree with that, it's because you're mentally deficient. Period.

True. You can completely ignore metro in Windows 8, even without anything like Start8. You might encounter the start screen, but that's ok. The start screen works very very well with keyboard and mouse. It's some of the metro apps themselves that don't necessarily work well with keyboard and mouse... and they are completely avoidable.

The only metro you will really necessarily encounter in Windows 8 is the start screen, and it's well designed for keyboard and mouse. Ignore the apps, if you must.

You know that you can still pay for and download the $40 upgrade before January 31st and wait to install it. If you're running Xp or Vista this should be a no brainer. I am still easing myself into Windows 8 and find myself dual booting between 7 & 8. If I boot into 8 in the morning I find that I end up using it all day.

Once you get the hang of how Metro works with a keyboard and mouse, it really isn't that big a deal. Of course it's not the best way to interact with Metro apps, but hardly the atrocity it's being made out to be.

I personally brought an upgrade. Although I still dislike a lot of the design decisions made with 8, you can resolve the butt ugly theme and lack of start menu with third party solutions. I haven't migrated from 7 yet as I'm still not convinced they have completely ironed all of the bugs out but in my opinion it's worth getting whilst the upgrade is still really cheap, as they will iron the bugs out eventually.

I personally purchased the upgrade due to the price.. Installed the upgrade and didn't like it... For a tablet I think it would be excellent, for desktop I prefer Win7 Ultimate... More down to preference I think... Depends on your opinion of Metro